1. Database can be connected live without installing & wasting 2GB of space - that could stores 100s of flac albums

You are a bit out with your calculations here, as there is no way that you can get 100s of FLAC albums in 2GB of space.It would be more like 5 to 10, even at the highest (FLAC, level 8) compression setting.

@ tech1a: Just to respond to some of the points (Mr BB beat me to the maths of FLACs ).

Fan noise: I don't think it matters whether the X10 is "high end" or not. The fanless Marantz M-CR610 isn't high end and is in the same price range. There are also other units at the same sort of level, with varying features, that are fanless. I doubt many will be paying the extra £450-£500 for an X30 just to be fanless. . I don't think loosening screws or removing the fan are serious options, unless I want melted goo in place of a fully functioning X10 .

All-fields search: Depending on how the database is structured, it shouldn't be too difficult to create an option to search for a string without having to specify the field. I'm assuming the Music DB operates via a flat data base. If so, it is not dissimilar to a spreadsheet and it's easy to search for any string in an Excel spreadsheet without specifying the column (read "field"). If the Music DB is relational, it's a bit trickier but not insurmountable.

The more I think about it, the X10 (and particularly the X30) are quite vulnerable to competition from manufacturers producing products like the M-CR610. All that needs to happen is for a hard drive to be added with onboard software and voilà. It wouldn't take much to change the existing CD trays to enable ripping. If, say, it cost an extra £250 to add that kit to the Marantz, it would still be much cheaper than an X30 - and it would offer DAB radio in addition to FM, plus A-B speaker options for bi-amping and/or bi-wiring.

The more I think about it, the X10 (and particularly the X30) are quite vulnerable to competition from manufacturers producing products like the M-CR610. All that needs to happen is for a hard drive to be added with onboard software and voilà. It wouldn't take much to change the existing CD trays to enable ripping. If, say, it cost an extra £250 to add that kit to the Marantz, it would still be much cheaper than an X30 - and it would offer DAB radio in addition to FM, plus A-B speaker options for bi-amping and/or bi-wiring.

A few things to chew on me thinks .

It's food for thought there MusicBod, but the big manufacturers are definitely looking towards streaming as the future of Hi-Fi, and while it would be easy to add the hardware required for ripping and storage etc, the difficult part is providing the firmware, metadata, artwork, manual and user interface.Not to mention the kind of support structure that Cocktail Audio have with the forum.

The X10/X30 are interesting products which are ideal for anyone who does not want the added complexity of ripping on a PC and streaming to a networked Hi-Fi.In this respect cocktail audio are actually lacking in competition. The closest thing to an X30 is probably a sony HAP-S1 at around £800.00, but it will not play or rip CD's, stream from network devices and it only has a 500GB internal HDD.

There is no such thing as a free lunch though and you are trading sound quality, features, functionality, speed and upgradeability against an easier to use all in one product. Which really needs to be the best it can be for the price straight out of the box. As the inherent limitations of this approach will increase over time.

While the X10 was generally well received when it was new, around three years ago. The hardware is now showing it's age and could really do with a serious upgrade.Processors, memory and digital amplifiers have all moved on in terms of speed and quality, so better performance for around the same cost should not be a problem.Admin has said that the X10/30 are not PC's, and I would not expect them to be one either, but not being able to listen to your music because you are doing a backup is clearly out of step with today's technology.

Unfortunately I can't see how the X10 will get a decent upgrade when the X30 at around three times the cost, only has a slightly better hardware spec.Obviously you can't compete against your own products, so what happens now?

Being relatively new to the X10 and having experienced several unusual and severe catastrophes during the initial set up, there can be no doubt whatever that the top priority is a total rewrite of the manual by a competent manual writer and not the developers. The present manual is difficult to follow, incomplete and in places, totally misleading.

As to other necessary attributes the first is quality of the music which should take precedence over physical things like the structure of the case or screen size (although a large/longer screen would be nice).

Following up on the comments about the useless metadata, I must say that anyhone who allows the X10 to set up all metadata on ripping a CD is asking for trouble. I have never seen such bizarre classification and as my bent is towards classical music having the whole collection classified as "Classical" is nonsense. However, it takes very little time to fill in the metadata on the screen at the time and the results are forever rewarding. I classify by Genre/Album and use Ballet, Chamber, Chants, Choral etc. and name each album with the composer first and then the title. In this way I can select "Symphony/Beethoven - Symphony No. 9" or "Concerto-Piano/Mozart - Concerto No.27".

Again ppl confuse the database online (freedb) with the device capability.The database is used by many software/hardware companies from most of the devices use freedb.Plus it is only a guide, one should rely on the database to catelogue their collection, hence tag editing software.Even with the accurate professional version that can be purchase (or built into sw)...i still make changes.Freedb is one of the most popular, grace notes is better but not extensive enough for international albums/ other non-english versions etc

I have had my X10 for 4 years now and find it is the best hifi system out there albeit a little complicated for the casual user. A friend vsited and saw mine and after a long demo he decided to buy one but the only problem with that, he is a total Ludite and finds it very difficult to understand all it's functions. Making the X10 much more user friendly will make it more appealing to people.

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